Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs, Colorado has partnered with PresenceLearning to provide online speech therapy services for K-12 students to help relieve the district’s speech-language pathologist (SLP) shortage. As part of this partnership, the district’s speech-language pathologist assistants (SLPAs) work with PresenceLearning’s certified therapists to provide more than 120 students with a combination of virtual and on-site support.
“After experiencing a chronic SLP shortage in our district, we needed to find a stable and consistent way to deliver speech therapy to our students,” said Deirdre Shearer, Special Programs Coordinator of Harrison School District Two. "Students now receive dual support – the SLPs and SLPAs work together so that students participate in robust and engaging therapy.”
Harrison School District Two is a diverse and innovative district that serves approximately 10,000 K-12 students, more than 1,000 of whom receive special education services. After piloting PresenceLearning earlier this year as part of their extended school year (ESY) for special education students, the district implemented the online speech therapy services in the fall of 2012. As part of the implementation and ongoing work together, PresenceLearning’s SLPs supervise – and work with – the district’s SLPAs. The SLPs provide articulation and speech services and, together with the SLPAs, plan appropriate lessons, activities and learning objectives for the students.
PresenceLearning offers online speech therapy by providing online access to a nationwide network of highly qualified, fully licensed speech-language pathologists who are available whenever and where ever they are needed.
